The last time the national government of an English speaking nation defaulted on its debt was on January 2 of 1672, with the Stop Of The Exchequer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_of_the_Exchequer
We've now seen 351 years of debts being paid on time, so why would you think the government is suddenly not going to pay its debt? You'd need a strong thesis to explain why the 351 year old trend is coming to an end.
IIRC the US government failed to pay pensions for Civil War or WW1 soldiers, and the British government did something similar regarding bonds or pensions for WW1 or WW2 soldiers.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-24/belize-de...
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEGDQ188S
How will that not limit us going forward / is the current rate of "just add it to debt/never pay it back" sustainable?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_Japan
Furthermore, this number only increases when the increase in the debt is greater than the increase in the nominal GDP (a number much higher than the real growth of the economy, since the nominal GDP includes inflation, which, in this situation, can be thought of as a good thing). If the debt grows at 5% a year and the nominal GDP grows at 5% a year, then the ratio of debt-to-GDP remains largely unchanged, especially during eras when interest rates are low.
In 2021 the euro area (17 countries) had a quarter when their nominal GDP growth rate was an astounding 45%:
https://data.oecd.org/gdp/nominal-gdp-forecast.htm
The point is, we can increase the debt every year, from now till the end of time, and that is sustainable, so long as the growth of the debt is less than the growth of the nominal GDP.
Type "At what level does debt-to-GDP ratio hinder a nation?" into ChatGPT
I'm not talking about collapse, I'm talking about hinderance going forward
Raising debt, gotta service it, gotta raise taxes to pay for it or cut costs, no?
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/24/facts-about...
Wow, is this what we’ve come to? This is a valid thought process now?
I have no strong views on your point. But I really don’t think it’s safe to trust the very-convincing and very-possibly-incorrect responses generated by ChatGPT to inform your views (on anything).
The more important aspect is not that there's debt, but how it is spent and what is being spent on. If the spending is poor (aka, the spending is malinvestment), it doesn't matter that the current or projected future servicing is OK.
Using a metric like debt to GDP does not tell the whole story.
To the best of my understanding, any answers to that question in extant literature are either going to be highly theoretical, or about situations that are not sufficiently similar to that of the modern US to be helpful.